Updates

Ah, well, best intentions, right?

I still haven't found the magic formula for having everyone's needs adequately met for ten minutes so I can come and splash some words on a page. Right now Pacey is at school, the baby is napping and Brighton is watching a highly educational show (ha) while she eats breakfast. I am cramming Grape Nuts in as quickly as I can and am determined to post a quick update...it's been a busy few weeks!

I turned 33. I took a two hour nap with Archer and we went out to dinner. The end. Awesome birthday. I feel mostly back to my old self although, you know, on a lot less sleep. My stint as a breastfeeder has come to an end (more on that in a minute) but not before I had mastitis. That sucked. A LOT. However, in the course of getting it diagnosed and treated on a Saturday I found what has to be the best Urgent Care in history. I was in and out with prescription in hand in 15 minutes. Every week I feel like I'm able to resume a bit more of my normal routine. It's a challenge not to feel defeated by the sheer amount of tasks necessary to just keep up with everything, but I am slowly learning to be okay with Good Enough.

Pacey has now lost a total of three teeth, started first grade and begun speech therapy at a new clinic with a new therapist who is the brunette, Midwestern version of Cameron Diaz (lucky kid). School is going very well so far. He is riding the bus (!) which is nice for many reasons but not least because his school starts at 8 and I was really dreading trying to get us all out the door to join the chaos that is morning drop off. Our elementary school has a huge open enrollment (kids from outside the school's catchment area) due to a Chinese immersion program as well as the bulk of the special education services, which means more parents have to drop off their kids than would be typical. Nice to avoid all that and Pacey loves riding the bus. He is totally stoked with the independence he gets and it's good for me to let go just a little more. He is part of a general education first grade classroom with para support and he spends a couple hours in the morning with his special education teacher in her classroom working on academics (she pre-teaches things they'll do in his general ed class as well as works on speech, OT skills and other areas he may need adjusted curriculum). We send a communication notebook back and forth and I hear from lots of different people about what he is doing during the day. It's a huge relief to have started the year and ironed out all the details. I don't recommend changing school districts during the summer if you can avoid it! :/

Brighton will start pre-K and gymnastics this week and I will start having a few hours with just Archer a couple days a week. I'm excited for her to have something all her own again. She is playing soccer on Saturday mornings through our parks and rec program and takes it very seriously (in a good way). They spent the first few weeks just learning skills and starting this weekend they will play short games. She continuously amazes Chris and I with her passion and energy and she is extremely engaging. Her imagination is incredible and she is a great social director for her and Pacey's play time. She misses her brother during the day and will often tell people we encounter how much she loves and misses him. Her vocabulary and language have really matured and I'm going to introduce her to Ramona Quimby and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle this fall.

Archer has progressed from a squalling bundle of flailing newborn limbs into a nicely rounded, sometimes smiley 7-week-old. After the initial first few weeks of smooth sailing with feeding, his tongue-tie (which Brighton also had, much more severely) started to interfere and I had to take him for a frenulectomy (fancy way of saying a doctor takes a pair of scissors and clips the frenulum underneath the tongue to release it). It's not a fun thing to have to do but I'd been through it before and his was much less dramatic (go figure). Following that, however, he developed identical symptoms to Brighton when she was diagnosed with milk protein intolerance. Think waking up screaming every 45 minutes, gas that would raise your eyebrows coming out of a grown man and arching/fussing during feedings. I took him into the pediatrician and she recommended a trial on hypoallergenic formula - the other option would have been to eliminate all dairy from my diet and continue breastfeeding. Considering I don't eat meat, that would have basically made me vegan and, well, I just wasn't that committed to nursing. Long story short, he improved dramatically on the formula, I am weaning off the pump and that is that. It was really nice to experience a normal, drama-free nursing stint and I'm happy he got six weeks of breastmilk but I'm comfortable with formula feeding too and, you know, it's nice to have a baby that doesn't scream 24-7. He smiles and is starting to use his hands purposefully. He is still happiest upright and has amazing head and neck control. Sleep is improving again and he's waking an average of twice a night which isn't too bad. Day time sleep is all over the place but it's going to be a challenge to get him on a nap schedule anyway, with all the other obligations we have.

We have lots of great things planned for the fall and I'm excited for the change in seasons. My sister will be here for a long weekend to meet Archer and Chris is taking a trip to visit a friend in New York. Life is starting to feel manageable again, which is a relief, although I definitely see what people mean about adding a third kid and how much it complicates things! Ok, I'm off to feed said third baby and give him a bath. His new formula smells...not good. :)

Taking a break from swimming at our friend's
country club 

She's almost caught up to him in height

Notable because he actually consented to be
laid down on a blanket without screaming

Birthday dinner

I love when babies sleep with their arms over
their heads like this. He doesn't get the
opportunity to be out of a swaddle very often.

First day of school (note little sister's face in
the background ;)

Bus!

Baby: now with 100% more smiles

And a performance for your viewing pleasure:

Four Plus One Does Not Just Equal Five

So...apparently people want to see/hear about how things are going. Sitting down at the computer is ridiculously difficult right now and, frankly, has to be sort of low on the priority list. But! I am here now, I estimate I have about 10 minutes before Archer realizes he is sleeping in his crib and not my arms and vocalizes his discontent about that! So, some quick updates.

Archer
We are, all four of us, pretty smitten with our new little guy. There are a hundred different things I didn't remember about having a newborn in the house and it's been a steep re-learning curve in some respects. He's so different from my other babies in many ways. He is the first to come out of the womb knowing exactly what to do from a breastfeeding standpoint so for now, he is nursing exclusively (I confess I feel sort of proud of this even though I didn't do much but follow his lead). He is the first to be soothed in any real way by a pacifier (mixed blessing there). His little cheeks are covered in baby acne right now, which we haven't experienced firsthand before. And there is the small matter of the sheer size of him at birth (a pound and four ounces heavier than B was).

In other ways it's all very familiar. He's been strong from Day 1 like my other two, working on lifting his head up from his second week of life. He's up several times in the night, although this doesn't feel (so far) like the long, dark, dread-filled nights I remember from B's babyhood. I'm sleeping in the nursery (we have a bed in there, something I find very convenient) and it's been a pretty smooth wake-feed-back-to-sleep cycle and feels mostly manageable. It helped that he gave me a couple of nights of sleeping 4-5 hours at a stretch to put a little money in the sleep bank.

Me
I'm doing pretty good. Part of the reason I waited so long to come and write here was that I wanted to get through the first few weeks of crazy rollercoaster hormones before spilling weirdo stuff all over the place. Post-partum hormones are truly insane. I feel leveled off now, and it is amazing how differently I am experiencing A's infancy without the added stress of anxiety/depression. The best thing that has come of sharing that struggle has been the number of people gently checking in on me this time around. I've been able to discuss PPD with friends who had similar experiences and it's a real bonding point. My husband has been very vigilant and questioned me closely during those early crying jags that occur for no reason whatsoever.

I definitely find it a daily challenge to accept that I can't do it all during this time period, that the house is going to be messier than usual and that the big kids just have to be ok with a slower pace of summer. I am so used to daily adventures and spending a large portion of our time out of the house; it's taken some getting used to spending so much time at home. I am trying to do just a little extra every day to beat back the chaos, but I am also taking time to nap with my baby while he's still so small and snuggly and spend a little time each day just staring and marveling at him.

Big Brother Pacey
This kid has taken a new baby in stride, just like we thought he would. Both kids adored having their grandparents here and they did just fine without me here. The first week I was home was a little rough...the kids were overtired and there were some pretty astonishing meltdowns from both. But we moved through it and Pacey is just so amazingly tender and loving towards Archer. He runs to try to help comfort him whenever he is crying and croons to him, "Come here baby, it's ok, it's ok." Although sometimes he just addresses me: "What's wrong with your baby?" He notices and points out what he perceives to be big brothers wherever we go now; it validates my hunch that he would feel much more like a BIG brother to Archer than he does to Brighton.

Big Sister Brighton
Oh, my former baby-for-four-years. She definitely had to do some adjusting to having had her position usurped. She is still quite attached to me and the realization that the baby was going to take up a LOT of time and attention on an ongoing basis hit her hard. She had some pretty spectacular tantrums in the first couple of weeks but it has evened out and she tells me every day how much she loves our baby. She is incredibly helpful and loves to hold Archer. She calls him "Cutie Cuters Baby."

Daddy v3.0
Chris has really stepped up to help out with the big kids and make sure he bonds with this baby sooner than he did the last one (it helps that Archer doesn't scream bloody murder for 20 of every 24 hours). We are working out division of labor much better than we have done in the past and in general our lives feel like they have been less disrupted. I know people joke about how the youngest child always gets the laziest, least attentive parents but I think it's the opposite for Archer. We have hit our stride as parents and are much calmer with him and each other.

****

Ok, it's now five days later and I'm finally getting back to this post. I'm going to have to create some sort of shorthand if I'm ever going to get back to posting regularly. I'm going to throw some photos on here and just get it up. I am taking primarily phone pictures right now so these are older ones from my camera...I have to locate a cord to download from my phone and that...isn't likely to happen right now! More updated pics to come (maybe not from this week though....poor baby has a bad case of baby acne and his hairline is receding).

The most pregnant I'll ever be again

Fresh out of the oven

Meeting his big brother and sister

The only time he consented to lay in his plastic box

Loved the bonding time we had in the hospital

Going Home outfit

With my BFF's son, K, exactly four months older than A

With my mom and her dad, the kids' great-grandfather who came to visit

Nana and the three Harris beasts

And Now, Five

I have a huge amount I want to write about Archer's birth...all the ways it was better/easier than my previous two (spoiler: almost every single way) and the ways in which it's been a little harder. How I'm feeeeeling (generally good) and thoughts I have about, well, everything.

But for now, just some photos in the form of a virtual birth announcement. We had these taken at the hospital...I was skeptical to say the least but I love them wholeheartedly and I'm so glad we did it.

I'm home now, adjusting to a new reality (though not really because my parents are here helping) and navigating these first few days of getting to know a new person and reconciling the fact that the world keeps turning and life goes on despite the hugeness of the change that occurred within our family.

Welcome, my new son, we are SO glad you are here.

Archer Birth Announcement

Toothless

We were expecting Pacey to lose another tooth since his dental xrays showed both adult front teeth ready to pop through. Sure enough, he's had another wiggler for the last week or so. He handled this one better, although I think he still doesn't particularly enjoy it.

Anyway, this morning I was getting some clothes out for him and he ran into his room.

"Wook Mom, it came out!" He announced it so proudly and showed me the tooth, which he then insisted on brushing (?) Then, "Tooth fairy Mom! Six dollars!"

I'm not sure what I'm more proud of: the fact that he handled the whole thing so much better this time (and clearly *gets* the whole concept); the fact that he announced verbally, in a clear and complete sentence that he'd lost it; or the fact that he recalled the tooth fairy left him five dollars last time and decided to jump right in there and negotiate a raise.

If you think there is any way he's NOT getting six dollars, then you completely overestimate my ability to be sensible.

(I haven't been able to get a good picture of him sans two front teeth, but I'll keep trying. He's darn cute...)

U-Turn

Ugh, that whiny Manifesto of Crabbiness I posted last night is exactly why I haven't been posting much lately. No one needs to read a list of complaints, most of which are distinctly First World Problem in nature.

However, who doesn't want to read a list of awesome things? I'm making a point of sitting down this morning before the day has beaten me down, to record some of the great things happening lately.

Help is on the way. One of my greatest personal challenges in life is to learn how to accept offers of help graciously and gratefully. It's sort of ironic that this is so hard for me, given that the single most fulfilling act I can commit is to provide help to someone else. Accepting that I NEED the help has been the first step, and one that I've had to confront time and time again in raising small children without a family support network readily available. I've made such great friends though, and I am learning that help is available and that it makes other people happy to help too. Lately, I've had one friend give me virtually all the baby gear one could possibly need, another friend who I met through the awesomeness of blogging come over with her kids and entertain my kids while I spent some time going through all the various baby gear and organizing the nursery, and one more friend bring food for my husband and I, just because. We have received countless other offers of help and support while we get adjusted to life as a family of five and I am planning to accept many of these offers, with grace and appreciation.

Sugarfina. The candy blogger I read linked to this site and reviewed some of the candies available and I am intrigued. We are officially going on a Spending Moratorium in August to recover from the insane costs of moving, so I plan to do a little shopping for post-partum treats while I can.

Daily Life Skills. The other morning as I groggily came to, I heard Pacey come in the room and Chris exclaim "oh, buddy, look at you. Let's get you cleaned up before mama sees you." I couldn't bring myself to look and see what exactly needed cleaning up (although it's been years since I faced a morning Poopocalypse the residual trauma runs deep) and I gratefully fell back to sleep while Chris dealt with whatever it was. Turns out he had just woken up early and hungry and helped himself to the remainder of a batch of muffins I'd made the previous day. He delighted in sharing that he'd eaten them ALL UP, and I suspect that at least part of the delight was in that he'd gotten up early enough and eaten them fast enough that he hadn't had to share (firstborn, anyone??) It's a small thing, but I love to see him embracing his independence in this way.

Brighton, for her part, appeared yesterday morning at my bedside and whispered that she needed help snapping her shirt in the back. She'd selected a very *four* outfit including a tutu and gotten herself dressed (getting dressed is often a fight in our house). I complimented her on her efforts and she told me that she'd been awake for awhile and wanted to do something to help me. She's perfectly capable of getting herself dressed every day, but for her I was just really proud to see her developing awareness of others and wanting to help out. Kids - by design - are so darn self-absorbed for the first few years and it's always nice to see that they probably aren't going to be psychopaths.

Free Entertainment. I mentioned the parks and rec playground program earlier in the summer, and I continue to be pretty amazed by it. Twice a week I have the option of bringing the kids to a playground where there is a team of teenagers ready to run the kids around, play games and do some crafts with them for an hour and fifteen minutes. It's not really enough time to do anything and I prefer to stay anyway, just as an extra set of eyes on Pacey, but I can sit and chat with my friends who have also signed their kids up while someone ELSE is responsible for entertaining my kids. Score! I also learned recently that the city will provide a one-on-one aide for a child with special needs in order to facilitate participation in any of the parks and rec programs. Not a bad deal there.

Tiny baby laundry. There are piles of it in my living room, freshly washed and folded and awaiting wrinkly little newborn limbs.

Reinforcements on the way. Less than a week until my mom gets here! (and my dad a few days later). Then - and only then - I will be truly ready to have this baby. It's been almost a year since my parents' last visit and I'm so excited for them to get reacquainted with the kids and see our new place. And my mom is really awesome about doing laundry ;)

Babysitters. The other evening I had two of the most adorable thirteen-year-old girls from the neighborhood stop by to give me their resumes/business cards for babysitting. Although I love the additional reassurance that comes from hiring twenty-somethings, there is a real appeal to these girls who are clearly actually excited about hanging out with little kids and earning some money while they do it. These two were so earnest and had clearly prepared what they wanted to say, it just really touched me. Plus, I'm betting they are a much better deal than the college students we've been hiring!

Wine. A given, sure. But I'd forgotten that traditionally many people bring booze to a housewarming party!! We are now very well-stocked in the wine department and I am planning to take the opportunity while my husband is out of town to go through a hide a few select bottles til a few weeks from now.

Dee You Double En

That spells DONE. I am so done. Done with the flux we've been in for such a long time, done with feeling powerless against the moodiness characteristic of my pregnancies, done with physical discomfort.

The house projects continue...we had to have some drain tile installed to address the surprise water issue discovered before closing. I didn't really realize what it would entail, and following the final massive clean of the house in advance of our party last weekend, the basement is a mess of torn up landings, cement dust and furniture I'm incapable of returning to its rightful place.

I have become unfortunately familiar with the ins and outs of regular pest control services, and today got a full run down of all the previous/established/OHMYGOD mouse activity around the place. Eradication of the disgusting creatures and all the other creepy crawlies is underway, but just another fun surprise that comes along with purchasing a new house.

My kids and I are locked into what feels like neverending cycles of awesome/terrible behaviors. I'm conscious of trying to enjoy what time we have left before the next big change but I keep planning and trying to execute things I don't really have the energy for. I get crabby and snap about small infractions and they respond in kind by committing bigger ones. My patience is at an all time low and I can only hope that they don't remember what a colossal CRAB their mother was during this time. In some ways I love that Hedgehog's arrival comes in the middle of the summer, in other ways I'm just sad that by the time I feel vaguely like myself again it'll be time for school to start. Oh well, I suppose there's always next summer.

We did have a very successful party (final RSVP count was around 70...we had a few no-shows but suffice it to say there was a LOT of traffic through here). I'm really glad we did it and it was a great opportunity to connect with friends and meet neighbors before we go underground for a bit. But good lord was it tiring. I think I took three naps the following day and didn't do much in a vertical position at all.

The 4th of July was just ok this year, but with the party two days later we hadn't planned anything massive. It was fun to hit the local small-town celebration and see the kids' parade (which turned out to be...a parade of local kids. Heh)

Today I had my second-to-last OB visit and all is still well. Hedgehog is big enough and active enough it's actually painful at this point. I won't be surprised if he's a good sized little beast. A friend and I took all the kids swimming this afternoon at a combination sandy beach/chlorinated pool in a regional park near our new house. It's a great place but again, probably more than I should have attempted at this point.

And now, I need to go love on my kids before I throw them in their beds and hope that that's what they remember in the morning. Perhaps some pictures tomorrow if I can summon up the energy to download them (you know, amongst resting periods on my fainting couch)

Some Things

I'm finally starting to feel at home here in this house. It's funny what triggers that for me...it's the really mundane things like developing the muscle memory for that step down into the living room so it doesn't always surprise me. Emptying the dishwasher enough times that I don't have to think about where things go. Knowing which light switch controls which light (ok, that's still a work in progress). Cooking and baking our family favorites in the kitchen. And most of all, having a place for everything and everything in its place.

*****

I went and took a tour of the maternity unit at the hospital I'll be delivering at this past weekend. I was the only non-first-time-parent there, the only one with a scheduled c-section and the only person without the father present. It was actually really entertaining to watch the other expectant couples (that sounds patronizing but I don't mean it that way). I can recall so vividly how terrified I was at the birthing classes I made it to before Pacey was born - never got to the tour part - and I am so deeply grateful not to be going down this road for the first time. It was really reassuring to get the lay of the land, so to speak, and it helps me to be able to visualize where the birth will happen in a few weeks. It's really weird to know that Hedgehog will be born at a different hospital than his brother and sister. With Pacey in the NICU for eight weeks I got so familiar with our hospital in California and it felt completely natural to have Brighton there. However, this hospital? Contracts with a company that provides post-partum therapeutic spa services. And I? I will be availing myself of this last opportunity to pamper myself for awhile. Plus I'm hoping that an aromatherapy leg and foot massage might mean a quicker resolution of the cankles from hell.

*****

We actually accomplished enough yesterday afternoon that we had time to hang out in the yard and enjoy a perfect late Sunday afternoon before our first grilled dinner of the season. Just another small event that made me feel so much more settled. We ate our dinner out on the screened porch which is the perfect compromise for me; love being warm and feeling the fresh breeze but hate the bugs and general distractions of being outdoors. Plus, the view made up for the whining, complaining, spilling and endless demands that come with dining with small children.

*****

We took a walk down our street last Friday evening to deliver the invitations I had printed up for our housewarming party (you know, the ones I forgot to include the DATE on....dooohhhhhhh). On our way home we met some of our neighbors who were out playing with their kids. Their boys are a little older than our kids but definitely in the same age range, and I also learned that the family directly across the pond (sort of our next door neighbors) also have two kids a little younger than ours and she is due with their third, a boy, on 7/15. I actually exchanged a couple of emails with the mom who is on bedrest (can't imagine) and she seems really nice. I'm so excited to start to get to know these people. Hopefully some will make it to our party and those that can't we will likely meet at the neighborhood summer block party the following weekend. Seems like a very congenial group of families...just need to meet the ones who have daughters of babysitting age!!!

Brighton displaying her portrait of Huff. She
was totally miffed that he seemed disinterested
in it

Can't stress enough how much of a fish P
turned into over his weeks of swim lessons.
He has such better control over his body now.

Gotta love a sweaty handful of drooping
dandelions presented with earnestness

Little Harry Potter

Highly recommend a cheap inflatable kite on
a short string. If you have persistent kids, they
will run around "flying it" for hours

Me and my boy

This girl is suddenly all long limbs and big
words (used correctly, too)